Sebastian Vettel has been penalised for his move on Daniel Ricciardo in today's Mexican Grand Prix.
In the final stages of what had been a fairly uneventful race, things suddenly sprang to life as Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, both on fresher rubber, closed on third placed Max Verstappen.
As the German battled with the Dutch youngster, the Red Bull driver ran wide rejoining the track still ahead of the Ferrari. Though there was no immediate word from the stewards he was advised by his team to yield the position but he refused to do so.
As he maintained his position, and Vettel grew increasingly frustrated, Ricciardo closed in and began his assault on the Ferrari.
While Vettel accused Verstappen of brake-testing him in Turns 1 and 2, as the trio headed into Turn 4 Ricciardo made a move on Vettel which resulted in the two touching, the Australian subsequently claiming that the German moved under braking, ironically a charge which has been consistently levelled at Verstappen since the summer break.
"I felt that Seb did what everyone has been complaining about lately, moving under braking," Ricciardo subsequently told Sky Sports. "I saw he defended half way down the straight, I was going to go to the outside, and then it just looked like he opened it so I committed to the inside. I thought I had every right to be there, and then he just kept closing the door under braking. I locked the brakes trying to avoid contact, but he just kept closing so in the end I had nowhere to go. I was frustrated with that.
"Don't get me wrong, I love racing," he continued, "I love racing hard, I love seeing locking brakes and even a bit of contact is fine, but this whole moving under braking, if you're going to defend, you commit early and that's it. You don't do it once you've already been outfoxed. I feel like that's what I did today, Seb was there, he moved, I went, I won the chess match if you like.
"And then he's like 'oh, I screwed up, and now I'm going to try and repair my mistake'. For me that's not right."
Clearly the stewards agreed, for after talking to both drivers and viewing various video evidence they handed Vettel a 10s time penalty deeming that he had made an "abnormal change of direction" that was "potentially dangerous".
Justifying their decision, which sees Vettel drop to fifth, behind the two Red Bull drivers, in their directive the stewards explained that: "Notwithstanding the F1 Commission directive to 'let the drivers race' we note the concern that has been expressed about manoeuvres involving a change of direction under braking as expressed at the drivers briefing at the US Grand Prix and in the race director's notes from the US Grand Prix and this event.
"The telemetry and video evidence shows that the driver of car 5 (Vettel) did change direction under braking.
"Article 27.5 and the race director's notes have essentially three criteria that determine a breach; driving in a manner potentially dangerous, an abnormal change of direction and another driver having to take evasive action.
"The video footage, including the close circuit footage, the broadcast vision, both drivers' on board cameras plus the telemetry show that there was an abnormal change of direction by car 5 and this was considered to be potentially dangerous in view of the proximity of the wheels of each car.
"The video evidence clearly shows that car 3 (Verstappen) had to take evasive action as a result.
"Accordingly as all three criteria have been met, the driver of car 5 is guilty of a breach of article 27.5."
Vettel was also given two penalty points.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Mexico City, here.
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